Helpful Reply

Please tell me it's just a mistake.

It's would be absolutely ridiculous that new tab now just opens a blank page.

No add-on should ever be needed to make a new tab open the start page.

Don't make the same mistake as they did at Chrome, where even when you have set a startpage, the new tab doesn't use it. It's common sense, that if you set a start page, then OF COURSE that is what you also want when you open a new tab. I don't want to have to use an add-on for that.

Please, change this.

I am also not a fan of the status bar being gone. I want it to show all the time. I can't stand the way it's hidden now, and only appear when hovering over a link or when loading. I realize some people probably like it, but I want the choice to keep it visible.

Please tell me it's just a mistake.
It's would be absolutely ridiculous that new tab now just opens a blank page.
No add-on should ever be needed to make a new tab open the start page.
Don't make the same mistake as they did at Chrome, where even when you have set a startpage, the new tab doesn't use it. It's common sense, that if you set a start page, then OF COURSE that is what you also want when you open a new tab. I don't want to have to use an add-on for that.
Please, change this.
I am also not a fan of the status bar being gone. I want it to show all the time. I can't stand the way it's hidden now, and only appear when hovering over a link or when loading. I realize some people probably like it, but I want the choice to keep it visible.

I have just come across this problem and as this is my preferred browser I would like to stick with it unless there are certain things that I cannot do which other browsers can. I also do not want to use add-ons unless it cannot be helped.
In the previous reply the clicking the middle mouse button on the homepage icon sounds a good idea, but I'm at college and the mouse does not have a middle button. Is there an alternative? Yes - trying out, I have found that holding down Ctrl key and left-clicking the homepage icon works.

I have just come across this problem and as this is my preferred browser I would like to stick with it unless there are certain things that I cannot do which other browsers can. I also do not want to use add-ons unless it cannot be helped.
In the previous reply the clicking the middle mouse button on the homepage icon sounds a good idea, but I'm at college and the mouse does not have a middle button. Is there an alternative? Yes - trying out, I have found that holding down Ctrl key and left-clicking the homepage icon works.

I still find it amazing Firefox cant do this on it's own. Seems like this has been in every other browser for years. If there was not a working plugin for this I'd have stopped using Firefox because of this alone.

I still find it amazing Firefox cant do this on it's own. Seems like this has been in every other browser for years. If there was not a working plugin for this I'd have stopped using Firefox because of this alone.

I usually do not want to open the home page in a new tab, but want to open a new blank tab with Ctrl+T and type or paste the URL or a bookmark keyword of the site that I want to open.

What is against a middle-click on the toolbar Home button?
I usually do not want to open the home page in a new tab, but want to open a new blank tab with Ctrl+T and type or paste the URL or a bookmark keyword of the site that I want to open.

Yes, thank you, I found that holding down Ctrl and then clicking on the Homepage icon opened a new tab with my Homepage. But until recently just clicking on a New Tab opened it with my Homepage. Now if I click on a new Tab it opens in a blank window and in oder to get my Homepage I then click on the Homepgae Icon. Why has Firefox removed/changed this? It was so convenient.
At the moment then I shall use Ctrl + click on Homepage icon (the house image). Becuase Firefox is so much quicker and friendlier to use than IE I will still stay with Firefox but hope they will eventually restore the ability of a New Tab to immmediately open with my Homepage.

Yes, thank you, I found that holding down Ctrl and then clicking on the Homepage icon opened a new tab with my Homepage. But until recently just clicking on a New Tab opened it with my Homepage. Now if I click on a new Tab it opens in a blank window and in oder to get my Homepage I then click on the Homepgae Icon. Why has Firefox removed/changed this? It was so convenient.
At the moment then I shall use Ctrl + click on Homepage icon (the house image). Becuase Firefox is so much quicker and friendlier to use than IE I will still stay with Firefox but hope they will eventually restore the ability of a New Tab to immmediately open with my Homepage.

A new tab opens by default as a blank tab (about:blank).
If that wasn't the case previously then an extension has changed that behavior.
You can look at this extension:
* NewTabURL : https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/newtaburl/

This is a fresh install of Firefox 8 meaning that there are no extensions installed that could be causing this problem, so I surmise that it is in fact the default behavior of the Firefox that has changed. The work-around for this problem is less than ideal, because certain websites, like Google, don't work correctly with the plug-in. For example, the cursor normally activates on the Google search bar, but the NewTabURL plug-in interrupts that functionality. Not cool. This is just one in a growing list of annoyances that I have with Firefox.

This is a fresh install of Firefox 8 meaning that there are no extensions installed that could be causing this problem, so I surmise that it is in fact the default behavior of the Firefox that has changed. The work-around for this problem is less than ideal, because certain websites, like Google, don't work correctly with the plug-in. For example, the cursor normally activates on the Google search bar, but the NewTabURL plug-in interrupts that functionality. Not cool. This is just one in a growing list of annoyances that I have with Firefox.